Friday, January 08, 2010

Camera Obscura: A-Team Returns; Lana Turner Does LSD

-- Are there actually people who will pay cash money to see a movie remake of the old "The A Team" TV show? Really? Trailer (including a parachuting tank and requisite explosions) here. I suppose since Liam Neeson is playing Zeus in the remake of the 1980s movie "Clash of the Titans" he was a natural to play Hannibal (and who better to direct the movie than Joe Carnahan, who oozes bullets and blood in his previous movies, like "Smokin' Aces", which of course has a sequel on the way).

-- Hollywood is gearing up for their annual awards, but there is a real problem in a fundamental part of filmmaking -- a problem many of us have seen for some time. Good writing is scarce. And when you add in a list of rules so byzantine and twisted, the nominees for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adaptation from another work, turn very odd. One example: the critical acclaim for "Inglorious Basterds" is likely to earn a Best Picture nominee, but Quentin Tarantino won't get a script nod because he is not a member of the Writer's Guild. Then there's writer Nick Hornby, whose movie "An Education" is gaining lots of praise and nominations, but since he belonged to the 'wrong chapter" of the Guild, he is not eligible for an Oscar nod. The rules in place are making a shambles of the potential race for "the best" and a fine write-up at Cinematical details how everyone is being disqualified.

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Tonight, film fiends will want to stay up late for a chance to see movie star Lana Turner in her one and only wacky LSD trip motion picture. Turner Classic Movies will air "The Big Cube", made in 1969, and certainly a vivid snapshot of ... hmm, well, a snapshot of Weirdness, in a groovy sexy '60s kind of way.

It airs at 2 a.m. and is followed by another drug/romance tale, "I Love You Alice B. Toklas". But since The Big Cube barely was released to theaters and just hit DVD last year, that is the one to watch.

Turner plays an aging actress (what a stretch) who has a daughter who speaks with an eastern European accent for some reason, and the daughter falls under the seductive allure of a Bad Man (George Chakiris from "West Side Story") and pretty soon murder, orgies and crazed LSD trips fill the movie screen. Here's the trailer for the movie (all nudity is genteelly blocked):